h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

" in English a quarrel is also a square or diamond-shaped window pane."

Really? Is that current usage or lapsed? Never heard it, thats all! Would it be used to apply to the diamond shaped window segments you get in the old lead lined windows?

Yep, Chambers is in agreement. I'd never come across this meaning of 'quarrel' either. We have now!

Whilst having a look in the dico my eye was caught by the etymology of the word above - 'quark'. It's origin is given as: From word coined by James Joyce in Finnegan's Wake!

Anyone know how that came about? Is that some kind of scientific joke?

Spiff

nope. the word does come from Finnegans Wake
"Three quarks for a muster mark"
or something like that.

Now where's that index (and the previous thread) so we could just point to the relavent postings

Ictoan, quarrel's most commonly applied to the diamond-shaped panes even though they're technically the wrong shape for the word. It's certainly not in particularly common usage, but the windows aren't either I'm sure a glazier would know what you're talking about, although the diamond used to cut glass is also called a quarrel...

Spaceman Spiff, Gell-Mann is reputed to have chosen the term quork as a name and then remembered his Joyce. The line in Finnegan's Wake is "Three quarks for Muster Mark", and is a nonsense word in a piece of nonsense verse. Baryons are made up of three quarks and barely make any sense to anyone even now

Murray Gell-Mann who coined the term "quark" still insists it rhymes with dork, because it is a corruption of "quart". Much of Joyce's prose was created by taking normal sentences and applying a series of changes of letters to it, so "three quarts for Mister Mark" became "three quarks for Muster Mark". Everyone else pronounces it to rhyme with Mark.

Isn't there a type of yoghurt called Quark?

Yup, it's a sort of Germanic creme fraiche.

Speaking of yoghurt, how do you spell it? Yoghurt seems to be the most common way, but I've seen Yogurt and Yoghourt.

Up, Down, Top, Bottom (or Truth, Beauty), Strangeness and Charm, the six types of Quarks. To my mind this just shows that particle physicists pick words randomly out of the air. If I were you I wouldn't worry about it. Even worse is when they talk about colours, which are forces or some such in Quantumchromodynamics.

Munchkin, never got the hang of anything less than an electron.

Yaourt's clearly the best spelling

Types of quark? On the shelves in the supermarket in Germany you can get strawberry quark, blueberry quark, raspberry quark, apple quark, quark with herbs, plain quark, quark with 0%, 20% or 40% fat. It is not quite as smooth as the French fromage blanc, although the colloquial name for Quark is Weißer Käse (also the translation of white cheese) and doesn't have such a delicious taste, either.

It is the basic ingredient for cheesecakes and for some forms of dumpling.

I don't know how they get the various forms of soured milk. As well as quark and yoghurt, there is Dickmilch, Kefir, Frischkäse, creme fraiche and various other varieties, many of which come from Eastern European countries or Turkey. Each of them has a different consistency and taste. Could it be that they use a different enzyme or whatever to make the milk go sour and solidify. Quark is quite like syllabub, which, according to my recipe books, is made with rennet. To make millk turn into yoghurt, I add yoghurt and the bacteria just spread until all the milk has turned to yoghurt. How are the others made?

Fulfilling my current duties as lady cook ( ~jwf~) my copy of Mrs Beeton lists the ingredients for Syllabub as 1 pint of sherry or white wine, half a grated nutmeg, sugar to taste, and 1 and a half pints of milk. Additional ingredients are 'clouted cream' (sic), pounded cinnamon, and a little brandy. "in some counties, cider is substituted for the whine: when this is used, brandy must always be added". As if that was not alcoholic at all, the next recipe is 'Tipsy Cake'.

She also says that Whipped Syllabub has half a pint of cream, quarter of a pint of sherry, half that quantity of brandy, juice of half a lemon, a little grated nutmeg, 3 oz of pounded sugar, and whipped cream.

A heart attack looking for a place to happen!

a lady cook called Ben

Interesting word 'Frischkase'.
It reminds me of something that used to be done to chicken.
I never knew how to spell it or what it meant and I haven't heard it for years but it was one of those phrases gourmet pretenders used to throw around like 'filet' and 'cordon bleu' and 'a la carte'.

Anyone ever hear of 'frick-assayed chicken'?

I suspect, if it relates to TC's 'Frischkase', it must be a cream and chicken dish.

*laments the loss of 'chicken a la king' from restaurant menues*

~j~

Fricassée? Easy-peasy. Cook chicken (boil in a saucepan of water - you'll need the stock later), pull meat off bones and chop it up. Fry onions and whatever veg you have to hand, flavour as preferred, add cream and chicken stock in equal quantities and boil up into a sauce. Chuck in lumps of chicken, stir and eat.

A fricasseed chicken is one that has been chopped (casser= to break) into portions, fried (frier = to fry) and then - usually, but not necessarily - stewed. Coq au vin, for example, is fricasseed chicken. Frischkäse is literally and semantically the same as fromage frais (i.e. cream cheese).

Have you been having visions of yourself smothering chickens in cream cheese again, John? Go on, you can tell us

Frischkäse is what goes elsewhere as Philadelphia. Instant cardiac arrest - high fat content - and rather delicious, especially as it's what is used in the English and American version of cheesecakes - i.e. they are not cooked, but just made with this kind of thick spreading cheese, whipped cream, sugar, etc., etc. The German Cheesecake is 26 cm in diameter, at least, and some 6 cm high, and you get enormous slices. If you did that with the British/American version, you'd be a goner. Anyway, you wouldn't manage it.

Ramble ramble. Sorry, this is grammar class.

Oh right, Cooking's down the hall somewhere..
"Easy-peasy" indeed! The best part of chicken-a-la-king (besides that creamy cheesey sauce and the sauteed onions) was the mushy peas!

OK a word then. How about 'moggies' or 'moogies' heard on Coronation St in a context that seemed to mean cats or pets or stray animals generally?
Audrey Robert's replying to someone's suggestion that a will had made provision for someone's pet, offered that if her late husband and his charitable group, the Square Dealers, had their way all 'the moogies would be well off'.

*the above post has an extraneous apostrophe and lacks my usual signature*

peace
~j~

"the above post has an extraneous apostrophe and lacks my usual signature"

That's as may be ~JWF~ but it still has style.

"OK a word then. How about 'moggies' or 'moogies' heard on Coronation St in a context that seemed to mean cats or pets or stray animals generally?"

Moggies are, at least in the greater part of NW England, Cats - generic, but not complimentary. I found someone, once, from around St. Helens I think, who claimed that she and hers used the word to refer to mice. I think she was mad.
The great Ken Dodd describes his "combinations" (one piece vest/underpants) made from cat fur. Saying that it is famous because when he walks down the street people shout:
"Hairy coms!" ( Scouse pronunciation of "Here he comes".)
(I'm sorry I started that.)

Amongst some motoring aficionados "Moggie" is an affectionate term for the Morris Minor.

Moggy is the feline equivalent of the canine "Mutt".